by Monica Chamness
Staff Writer
Music can make the toes tap and the heart soar, but it may also help the sick become well again.
Body and Soul: The Art of Healing is a conglomeration of artists, musicians and other creative types who bring smiles to the faces of patients in Jacksonville health care facilities.
Since the program started at St. Catherine Laboure Manor in January, the nonprofit group has orchestrated over 100 events.
“The idea is to form a collaboration between the arts and the health care community by pooling resources to offer comprehensive programs tailored to an institution’s needs,” said James Jenkins, a tubist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and the driving force behind the program.
So far, four local facilities have approached Jenkins to bring his troupe of dedicated volunteers to the ill.
Ten different programs are administered by hundreds of artists from over a dozen different cultural organizations such as the St. John’s River City Band, Jacksonville University’s music department, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, LaVilla School of the Arts, Riverside Fine Arts, Theatreworks, Don Thompson Chorale and First Coast Ringers.
Instrumental in operating the visual arts side of Body and Soul is the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens.
“It’s been very successful,” said Jenkins. “All the feedback has been more positive than our expectations.”
The programs include:
• Helping Hands. A hands-on demonstration of visual arts, including a workshop of specific art techniques.
• Snapshot. Patients take photographs of their experiences with an illness to form a collage.
• Community Ticket. Various art organizations donate tickets to the sick for performances they know won’t sell out
• Room Service. A small team of musicians visit bedridden patients for brief intervals in their hospital rooms
• Art in Public Places. Works of local artists are displayed in galleries or in the hallways of the medical center
• Children at Play. An instrument zoo teaching children how to make music
The artists giving their time are not licensed clinicians, but music therapists can prescribe routines for their patients to follow.
“I have worked with some music therapists to see what their methods are, what to avoid, what to expect and what to do,” he said.
Two of the participating hospitals, Baptist Cancer Institute and St. Catherine, are conducting research to measure the quantitative effects of the program. Studies undertaken by the Cancer Institute focus on the program’s impact on pain management, weight loss and triggers of geriatric depression. Beginning in January, breast cancer patients will be the subject of a series of six-month studies. St. Catherine is also launching a six-month study, which was funded by insurance agent J.F. Bryan.
Jenkins, though, doesn’t need a study to understand the impact The Art of Healing has had.
“At Baptist Medical Center we took our Room Service program in, and on the first day there was this woman who was comatose, totally unresponsive,” he said. “She said that the only thing that brought her out of the coma was the music. Many of the staff witnessed it. At St. Catherine’s there was a resident there who hadn’t spoken in seven years. After a couple of musical visits, he was compelled to try to speak.”
Jenkins, who performs with John Ibock, a doctor and a jazz pianist, says the program may seem like magic, but the premise is rooted in science.
“The concept has been around since Biblical times,” explains Jenkins. “It changes the emotional, physical and psychological. The thought is that people’s DNA print responds specifically to different keys. The reason we respond strongly to certain music is not based on what we think is a conscious preference; a lot of it is based on our DNA. Everybody’s DNA vibrates at a different rate. Scientists lower the vibration so it’s in the audible range. The composer writes music based on this DNA-tone. They’re doing things in places like having live music in operating rooms and they’re learning that the anesthesiologist is using up to half the amount of anesthesia to keep the patient at that level.”
Observing hospital personnel dancing in the halls, Jenkins claims that the patients aren’t the only ones to benefit from the therapy. Family, friends, bystanders, the medical staff and even the artists themselves are positively affected. Participating artists also glean knowledge about medical issues they may face.
His impetus to start the organization was his father’s untimely death.
“He spent the last years of his life in a health care institution because of complications of diabetes,” said Jenkins. “Spending time with him I learned what I thought was a need for something that would make their life a little more normal because it is a stressful environment for everyone. I set out to learn about this art and medicine concept. I found out about a network called The Society for the Arts and Health Care.”